


(Don't Forget) I'm With You in the Dark

by wayfinderings



Series: RokuVen Week 2020 [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Narcolepsy, Shooting Stars, a practice in being self-indulgent with my narcoleptic ven headcanon, narcoleptic ven, roxas is a very good friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:35:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26852293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayfinderings/pseuds/wayfinderings
Summary: Leaning over to take a look at the page that Ven had last taken a look at, Roxas couldn’t help but be drawn to the sheet of parchment paper Ven was still scribbling away on despite the fact that he wasn’t even looking at it anymore and had his gaze entirely fixed on his book. Immediately, Roxas realized what the issue was, as obvious as it should have been the entire time. A decent half of Ven’s parchment was filled with absolutely illegible scribbles and puddles of ink, and he was still going, writing line after line of scribble after scribble. No wonder he hadn’t given Roxas any acknowledgement when he was, for all intents and purposes, asleep sitting up at the table.Shaking his head, Roxas sighed. Their plans for stargazing that evening would have to wait until another day, he supposed, even though he knew that Ven would likely be disappointed. Tonight could be a night for turning in early. Maybe the sky tomorrow would be even more beautiful than the one they would have seen in a few hours.
Relationships: Roxas & Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: RokuVen Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1957120
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	(Don't Forget) I'm With You in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, I am almost late, but I'm finishing this at just about the last possible second.
> 
> Anyways, I had a lot of fun writing the fic for todays prompts. I decided to be a little self-indulgent, and it kinda ran away with itself, but I'm happy with where it ended up.
> 
> The title for this fic is taken from the ending credits song from Deltarune, "Don't Forget".
> 
> Day 2: **Sleep** | Training | **"Y'ever wonder what stars are? Where light comes from?"**

“Hey, Ven! Are you ready to head out, yet?”

Roxas clumsily skid to a stop in the doorway of the Land of Departure’s main study, gripping the doorframe to keep himself from falling over. Through the room’s floor-to-ceiling window, the golden light of the sunset bathed the entire room in warm hues and long shadow. He spotted Ventus sitting at the large circular table in the center of the room, appearing to be focused on a piece of study work Aqua had assigned to him after his training had finished for the day.

Letting out a small sigh, he lightly shook his head. Poor Ven, he was still studying at this late hour…

“Man, Aqua must be trying to work you halfway to the bone before you get to hang out with me today, huh, Ven?” Roxas let out a little laugh as he strolled over to Ven’s side.

…

Roxas raised an eyebrow and looked down at Ven out of the corner of his eye, confused as to why his lookalike hadn’t answered him. Ven had his head propped up with one of his hands and an open book laid out in front of him alongside a piece of parchment he was scratching away at with a quill and ink.

“Hey!”

No response yet again.

“Hey, Land of Departure to Ventus!”

Ven only shifted his head in his hand, absently glancing between the book and his sheet of parchment. Either he was way too focused to realize that Roxas was talking to him, or he was purposely ignoring him, and considering that this was _Ventus_ that he was talking about, the second option simply seemed way too out of character for him. Aqua had probably given him some work to do on a complicated topic, and Ven was simply devoting all of his brain power to understanding the language of the Land’s old tomes.

What was Ven even working on anyways?

Leaning over to take a look at the page that Ven had last taken a look at, he couldn’t help but be drawn to the sheet of parchment paper Ven was still scribbling away on despite the fact that he wasn’t even looking at it anymore and had his gaze entirely fixed on his book. Immediately, Roxas realized what the issue was, as obvious as it should have been the entire time. A decent _half_ of Ven’s parchment was filled with absolutely illegible scribbles and puddles of ink, and he was _still_ going, writing line after line of scribble after scribble. No wonder he hadn’t given Roxas any acknowledgement when he was, for all intents and purposes, asleep sitting up at the table.

How long had Ven been going on like that before Roxas had shown up? It couldn’t have been too terribly long, but when it came to the subject matters that Aqua liked to assign Ven to study, every minute spent reading every line of every tome counted.

Shaking his head, Roxas sighed. Their plans for stargazing that evening would have to wait until another day, he supposed, even though he knew that Ven would likely be disappointed. Tonight could be a night for turning in early. Maybe the sky tomorrow would be even more beautiful than the one they would have seen in a few hours.

Gently placing a hand on Ven’s shoulder, Roxas gave him a quick shake to coax him out of his daze.

If Aqua or Terra or anyone else had passed by, they probably would have thought Roxas had shot Ven with a well-aimed Thundara with the yelp of terror that he let out. Ven quickly pushed the chair that he was in away from the table, dangerously balancing it on only two of its legs before it completely toppled over and dumped him onto the floor in a confused heap. He had Wayward Wind gripped firmly in his hand -- Roxas wasn’t entirely sure when he had summoned it, but he decided it wasn’t really worth it to dwell on it for too long -- and let out a groan of pain.

“Ow…”

Roxas couldn’t help but let out a poorly stifled laugh at the whole display, to which Ven responded with an unimpressed glare, though calling it a glare may have been a bit of a stretch. “What was that for, Roxas?”

“What? No ‘thanks, Roxas’ for keeping you from ending up with ink all over your face again?” he asked teasingly, “If I had gotten here a couple of minutes later, I probably would have found you having face planted right into your inky scribbles, sleeping like nothing had happened.”

As Roxas finished, he watched as Ven completely deflated and Wayward Wind was finally dismissed, dissipating into a shower of light and sparks. 

“Not again…” Ven sounded so disappointed in himself, and Roxas felt like his heart had been grabbed and was being squeezed as pity and concern raced through it. Immediately, he jogged over to Ven’s side and crouched down to his level.

“Ven, it’s not like you can really do anything about it…” Roxas said, hooking his fingers under Ven’s chin and raising his head to make their gazes meet, “Master Yen Sid said it was just a side effect of what happened to you over the last decade. It’s not something you can control, and it’s not something you had a hand in inflicting on yourself, either, so stop beating yourself up over something that isn’t yours to control. You’ll learn how to more properly manage all of this eventually, so just treat stuff like this as learning experiences or something. Okay?”

“...Okay…” Ven answered, nodding and slowly rubbing one of his eyes.

So many emotions were reflected in Ven’s eyes as he thought over what Roxas had said -- so many, Roxas could probably never even dream of putting a name to all of them. Briefly he wondered if his eyes were like that, a true window into his soul as the saying went.

 _Probably not...that’s really more Sora and Ven’s thing…_ Roxas thought, never once tearing his gaze away from Ven’s, _Besides, I think I would be pretty mortified if I was as much of an open book as those two…_

He briefly shook his head, standing up again and extending a hand to Ven, who looked up at him with a mix of confusion and anticipation written on his face. “Well, c’mon. Probably wouldn’t be a terrible idea for us to turn in early tonight, right? That way, we can stargaze for longer tomorrow!” Roxas flashed the best smile he could manage in Ven’s direction in an attempt to fully convince him that this was the best course of action. Much to his surprise, Ven nodded, obviously struggling to hold back a yawn before taking Roxas’s hand and accepting the offered assistance. “Yeah, alright…thanks, Roxas.”

 _I guess he’s already a bit too tired to argue today…_ Roxas’s expression softened at the thought as he pulled Ven up, supporting his look-alike when Ven’s knee unexpectedly buckled under his weight and almost sent him right back onto the floor. Both of them let out a little laugh as Ven righted himself, an embarrassed smile serving as a wordless apology.

Roxas tried his best to make small talk as he walked down the castle’s wide hallways towards Ven’s room, but stopped expecting an actual conversation to take place after only a few minutes of Ven trying to hold back yawns. Instead, he opted to just tell stories about his training with Riku that day to give Ven something to focus on so that he wouldn’t end up practically sleepwalking to his room.

As they rounded a corner, Roxas was caught off guard by a rather large yawn of his own, feeling the weight of his own day’s worth of exhaustion begin weighing on his shoulders. He heard Ven let out a little giggle as he immediately rubbed at his watering eyes and silently cursed whoever or whatever had decided that making yawning contagious was an excellent idea.

“Good thing we’re not trying to stargaze tonight, huh?” Ven joked, a tired smile spreading on his face, “We’d probably have both nodded off in minutes, and then we would’ve gotten quite the talking to from Terra ‘n Aqua in the mornin’…”

“Yeah, I do _not_ want to be lectured by Aqua about sleeping outside at five in the morning…” Roxas said, almost shivering in terror at the thought as they approached the door to Ven’s room. “I’d rather agree to not eat sea salt ice cream for a week.”

“Sea salt’s not th’ only flavor of ice cream that exists, y’know that, right, Roxas?” Ven said, pushing the door to his room open and squeezing past Roxas through the doorway, “You need to broaden your horizons a little.”

Roxas scoffed good-naturedly at Ven’s sleep-addled attempt at conversation. “Sure, sure. Whatever you say.”

Ven laughed as he slid some of his larger armor pieces off and set them on the floor next to his bed before he hopped onto it and laid down on top of the sheets, apparently a bit too tired to care. Roxas shook his head lightly, kicking his shoes off and hopping on to the bed after him, sitting against the wall at its foot. Ven looked up at him, a bit confused yet again.

“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to, Roxas…”

“Nah, I know you’ve been having trouble getting a decent night’s sleep by yourself lately.” Roxas said, cutting off Ven before he could finish his thought, “And since Chirithy’s off with Riku for the rest of this week in Radiant Garden, it’s honestly the least I could do to stay with you for the night. Besides, I was planning on spending the night here at the Land today, anyways. It’s really not an inconvenience or anything, honest.”

Silence settled between the two of them, and Roxas was almost scared to break it. Ven didn’t say anything either, his eyelids fluttering heavily as he tried to fight against the sleepiness that was prepared to welcome him into its embrace. He lazily turned his head towards the window that was right next to his bed, wanting to catch at least a glimpse of the stars before he fell asleep for the night.

Completely unexpectedly, a trail of light blazed across the sky. Inwardly, Ven was excited that he had managed to see the shooting star. Outwardly, however, he simply let out a yawn and let a smile settle on his face as he struggled to think of something to wish for while teetering on the edge of wakefulness.

_I wish….I wish…._

As Ven tried his best to think up a wish, his gaze drifted over to Roxas, whose unfocused blue eyes were trained intently on the two fabric rings on his hand as he navigated through the thick exhaustion-induced mental haze Ven himself was very familiar with. Now that they weren’t really talking to each other, Roxas’s exhaustion had caught up to him and hit him like a truck, and he was just about as close to falling asleep as Ven was, even though it had only been a few minutes.

_I...I wish….._

_Roxas…_

_…._

Ven’s wish would have to wait until the morning.

Officially too tired to keep fighting off sleep, he let his eyes close, knowing Roxas wouldn’t be too far behind him. And when the endless darkness of sleep made way for the dream prepared for him that night, he found himself staring up at a brilliant swath of glittering lights with Roxas sitting right by his side. As he pointed out just about every celestial phenomenon he could name, Roxas was hanging on his every word and had a sparkle of fascination in his eyes almost bright enough to fool Ven into thinking he had stolen a few stars straight out of the sky and trapped them there. 

Perhaps that would be what Ven would wish for come the morning. He would wish for a brilliant, clear sky above the castle’s towers the next evening so that he could make this dream become a reality. Roxas had shared so much kindness with him over the last few weeks as he gradually came to terms with the residual effects of his decade-long nap. It was the absolute least that Ven could do to share something with him in return.

So he would share something with Roxas that he held very near and dear to his heart. He would share the light of the stars that he loved so very much, just as Roxas had shared the light of his heart with him. It was far from equivalent exchange, sure, but Ven would have all the time in the worlds to begin repaying him…

...as soon as he woke up in the morning with Roxas by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> For even more Roxas and Ventus related ramblings, along with Kingdom Hearts ramblings in general, check out my twitter: @wayfinderings


End file.
